The star of the BBC TV show The Repair Shop  Jay Blades MBE stopped off at a village pub to the delight of the locals and workers.

Mr Blades stopped off at the Harrow pub in West Ilsley while travelling across the Oxfordshire border with his friend.

The owners of the pub which is more than 300 years old described the furniture restorer as a “lovely guy” who was “very courteous and polite”.

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Taking to social media the pub posted a picture of the television presenter with one of the establishment’s management team, Connie Ord.

The post said:  “Great to see Jay Blades MBE dine with us today, such a lovely guy.

“We hope to see you again soon.”

Mr Blades has a history with Oxford with him studying in the city and during his younger years, spending his time volunteering at a homeless hostel.

He previously told host Lauren Laverne on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs that working at the hostel - which was reportedly the former Oxford Cyrenians in Rectory Road - was "a culture shock".

He would have been 23 or under during this time with Oxford Cyrenians closing after an untrained volunteer was stabbed by a schizophrenic at the hostel in 1993. 

Mr Blades left school with no qualifications and became a community worker in his early 20s after a rocky period that saw him homeless and with few prospects.

He grew up in Hackney, which in his childhood was a working-class area of Inner London, and now lives in Ironbridge in Shropshire.

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When the Repair Shop became one of the most talked about TV shows of 2017, Mr Blades himself had been homeless about four years before.

He went on to study at university, and later launched a charity to help young people learn furniture making and restoration.

He studied upholstery at the Rycotewood Furniture Centre at the City of Oxford College and gave a talk to students in Feberay last year about the work he did with the charity he started, Out of the Dark, which helped young people gain skills in restoring furniture.

He is also the co-founder of former charity Street Dreams, engaging thousands of disengaged and disadvantaged young people.

Blades has continued to star in The Repair Shop since its launch in 2017.

Last year, a special one-off episode to mark the BBC’s centenary saw Blades and the repair team visit the King, when he was still the Prince of Wales, at Dumfries House in Scotland.

During The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit, the monarch’s bracket clock and a piece made for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee by British ceramics maker Wemyss Ware were all fixed.

In May 2022, Blades was made an MBE for his work in promoting heritage craft and restoration in the UK.